The 5 Best WordPress Social Share Plugins Compared In Detail

Want to
add social media buttons to your WordPress site? Good decision! They’re a
great way to encourage social shares and boost your social traffic. But
unless your theme includes built-in social media buttons, you’ll need a
social share button plugin to get those nifty buttons for your own
WordPress site.

I guess it’s a good thing you’re here then…because
I’m about to list out the 5 best social share plugins for WordPress.
While there are hundreds of different plugins out there, these are, in
my estimation, the cream of the crop. Let’s dive in…

Summary: Best WordPress Social Share Plugins

In the
following table, I’ll give you a quick snapshot of each of the plugins I
looked at. But this is by no means the whole article! In the next
sections, I’ll dig into each plugin in much more detail, listing out its
pros, cons, and functionality.

1. Kiwi Social Share

Overview

Kiwi
Social Share is a freemium social sharing plugin that lets you add
social share buttons for a variety of networks in a similarly diverse
variety of styles. It’s lightweight, sending only 2 HTTP requests to
render social icons. And the pro version adds a variety of unique
features to help improve the functionality of your share buttons and get
you deeper analytics.

Kiwi Social Share Core Features

Supports all the major social networks right away – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Pinterest, Google + and more

Can enable/disable networks on an individual basis

Supports a variety of different button styles

Can display social share buttons in different locations on your site

Performance optimization with only 2 HTTP requests

Built-in Google Analytics Event Tracking for deep analytics

Automatic URL shortening via Bitly

Drag and drop ordering to change the order of social networks

Pre-populated Tweets to make it easy for visitors to share your content

Kiwi Social Share Pros

Because it only uses 2 HTTP requests, Kiwi Social Share won’t slow down your site

You can see which pages and networks generate the most clicks thanks to the Google Analytics integration

Kiwi Social Share Cons

No social sharing buttons on individual images – just for the whole page.

How Does It Work?

Once you
install the plugin, you select your desired social networks, choose your
location and button styles, and drag and drop the icons into the order
you’d like them to display. Then, your social share buttons will
automatically display in the location you selected

Pricing

Kiwi Social Share has a free version listed at WordPress.org.
While the free version can help you add basic social sharing buttons,
it doesn’t include all the features I listed above. If you’d like all of the features, the pro version starts at $19 for a single site license.

2. Social Warfare

Overview

While
Social Warfare does have a (very) limited free plugin at WordPress.org,
it’s most known for the premium version of the plugin. For that reason,
you’ll likely need to purchase the pro version if you want access to
most of the features I’ll list below.

Social Warfare Core Features

Add share buttons in a variety of locations, including some unique placements like fixed bar

A variety of styling options. 5,000+ total combinations

Upload custom images specifically for Pinterest

Pre-populated Tweets for easy sharing

Create “Click-to-Tweet” buttons inside post content

Specify minimum share counts before share counts start displaying

Automatic UTM tagging for Google Analytics tracking

Social Warfare Pros

Has some unique features like custom Pinterest images and unique placement locations

Goes beyond social share buttons with features like Click-to-Tweet

Helps you recover share counts if you need to switch from HTTP to HTTPS

Social Warfare Cons

Some people complain that the process of creating a simple gallery is overly complicated.

Complaints in the WordPress.org forums about lack of support

No social sharing in the free version

How Does It Work?

Like
Kiwi Social Share, you just install the plugin, choose your social
networks, styling, and locations, and you’re off to the races.

For more advanced features like Click-to-Tweets and Pinterest-specific images, you’ll need to add them on a per-post basis.

Pricing

The
pro version starts at $29 for a single site license, which makes it the
most expensive premium plugin on this list. Multi-site licenses are
similarly expensive at $135 for 5 websites and $250 for 10 websites.
There’s no unlimited license, which makes it a tough option for
developers to use for client sites.

3. Sumo Share

Overview

Sumo Share
is the social sharing button feature of the popular Sumo suite of apps.
The free version is surprisingly feature rich, which is a good thing
when you consider that access to Sumo Pro costs a hefty $29 per month.

Sumo Share Core Features

Supports 65 different social networks

In-content or sidebar display locations

Social share counts

“Smart Social Share” orders your social icons by those which get the most clicks

Drag and drop setup process

UTM tracking (only in pro)

Sumo Share Pros

Has one of the best lists of supported social share networks for a free version

Smart Social Share feature is unique and helps optimize your sharing

Can display total share count (shares across all networks)

Sumo Share Cons

Not a standalone plugin – bloated if you only want social share buttons

How Does It Work?

To
use Sumo Share, you’ll need to install the entire Sumo plugin (which
includes a variety of other apps). Then, you can enable the specific
apps you’d like to use, Share included.

Once Share is enabled, you can set it up using a simple drag and drop interface.

Pricing

The core
Sumo plugin is free. That gets you access to the basic versions of all
of the apps (including Share). The cheapest pro version starts at $29 per month. So if you’re considering going pro, you’d best be planning to use other Sumo tools as well.

4. Easy Social Share Buttons

Overview

Easy
Social Share Buttons is one of the best-selling social share plugins at
Code Canyon. While it originally started as a plugin specifically for
social share buttons, it’s now expanded to add some email list building
functionality…which might be either a good or bad thing depending on
your perspective.

Easy Social Share Buttons Core Features

Supports 50+ social networks, including all of the major networks

Display share counts for each network

Arrange social networks by drag and drop or share count

Different ordering depending on user’s device

Email subscribe button

27 different display positions

Trigger social share buttons to appear based on user actions

52 different template styles

Detailed analytics for which social networks get you the most shares

Easy Social Share Buttons Pros

Easy Social Share Buttons boasts one of the lengthiest feature lists of any social sharing plugin

Offers unique functionality for targeting social share buttons based on specific user actions

Has the most different display locations

Easy Social Share Buttons Cons

One
man’s “feature-rich” is another man’s bloated. That is, if you just
want basic social share buttons, most of Easy Social Share Buttons’
functionality isn’t really necessary.

Building on that, configuring all of these options takes much more time than a plugin that’s more “plug and play”

How Does It Work?

The
plugin includes all the settings you need in a backend interface inside
your WordPress dashboard. Just install, activate, and start
configuring!

Pricing

Unlike the
other plugins on this list, there’s no free version of Easy Social
Share Buttons (there is a plugin with that name listed at WordPress.org,
but it’s not the same).

The premium version will cost you $19 at Code Canyon with standard Envato licensing.

5. AddToAny

Overview

AddToAny
is the only social share button plugin on this list that’s 100% free.
That is, there’s no premium version – every single feature I’ll discuss
below is available in the free version listed at WordPress.org.

AddToAny Core Features

Supports over 100 different services

Display as part of your content, separate floating bar, or via shortcode

And that concludes our list of the best social sharing WordPress plugins. While this is by no means comprehensive (there are a ton of plugins out there!), these are some of the absolute best and most popular options.

For
the best balance of functionality and affordability, Kiwi Social
Sharing is a great option to add stylish social share buttons to your
WordPress site.

And if you want the plugin with the absolute
biggest feature list, Easy Social Share Buttons is also a solid option.
Just think long and hard about whether you actually need all of those
features!